CSA: Week 26 & Week 27

Last week, I was on vacation in Italy.  It was awesome and I have plenty to share.  While I was gone, a friend picked up my share.  She gave a bunch of stuff to Ken while I was gone, but naturally she did not keep the unnecessarily meticulous records that I do.  So our Week 26 included lettuce, carrots, daikon, sweet potatoes, and baby bok choy.  It was nice to come home to some healthy food, since of course I ate nothing but pasta and gelato in Italy.

Week 27 was our last pickup.  This happened about 5 days ago, on Tuesday, but in addition to catching up on reality, I've been struggling with a dead laptop battery.  Now that it's fixed, I'll share our final week of produce.  I went by myself, but gave a bunch to my mom.

The choice group consisted of beets, daikon, rutabaga (limit 1), and baby white turnips.  (I'm bad at taking the pictures, this one came out blurry!)  I opted for 2 bunches of beets and 2 bunches of turnips.

The baby lettuce was mostly dark red (bitter!) but they are so tiny, they all fit in one produce bag!  I gave this to my mom.

I kept the one tiny head of cauliflower.

I was so excited to see so much broccoli!  Mom kept 2 and I kept 6.  I used them in a mac & cheese recipe and in a frittatta and in some fried rice.  I love broccoli.

I was happily surprised to see cilantro so late in the season, especially after that snowstorm we had a few weeks ago.  I kept this one.

I had the time to pick out the nicest, crispiest leaves of swiss chard, so hopefully they last a bit longer than they do when I crunch them into the bag in a hurry.  (I kept this).

What to do with 6 pounds of carrots?  Fortunately they will last us a while.  Mom is holding these in storage for me, since I have nowhere to keep 6 pounds of carrots.

It was another great CSA season!  Next year I'll (hopefully?) have a job and I won't be able to do the pickup.  I'm entrusting this responsibility to my mom and hoping my inner control freak can just be grateful to have fresh produce.  The application became available when we were on vacation, and I'm planning to mail it out right after Thanksgiving to secure our spot for next year.  For now, it will be nice to have a break - I can go to the store and buy what I want for a recipe and not have to worry about what to do with all this miscellaneous produce.